


take care of you

by woozi



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woozi/pseuds/woozi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stares at it, still leaning halfway across the table with the string of his eye patch hanging from his index finger. Kaneki snatches it back and hurriedly, easily, like he’s done this a lot, slides it back on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take care of you

**Author's Note:**

> i held back from posting this for like a week because im not that happy with it but i figured if i dont force myself to post it now i never will so

When Kaneki sits down at their table at Big Girl with an eye patch on, Hide promptly plucks it off.

 

He assumed he was trying to be cool with it or something, inspired by something lame in one of the books he read recently, he didn’t do it just to be a dick. However, he wasn’t expecting to see the area around his left eye to be splotched with purple and red tints. He stares at it, still leaning halfway across the table with the string of his eye patch hanging from his index finger. Kaneki snatches it back and hurriedly, easily, like he’s done this a lot, slides it back on. Hide still stares.

 

“Man, what…” He starts. Kaneki wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t start shit with people. He barely talked to people enough to cause someone to hate him. Hide assumes he did it to himself in some idiotic way, like hitting himself in the face accidentally, he didn’t know. “Sorry – for that. I didn’t know… How’d you get that?”

 

Kaneki flushes and is suddenly very intrigued by plain surface of the table. Hide huffs and lays his head down on the table to get his friend’s attention.

 

“It’s no big deal. I did it to myself actually, it’s pretty embarrassing so let’s not talk about it.” Kaneki waves him off, reaching over to flick his forehead.

 

In his head, the idea of Kaneki giving himself a black eye seemed logical, but hearing him say it aloud didn’t sound right. He expected him to stutter _at least_ once, how he usually did when he was caught off guard. But the words left his mouth smoothly, perfectly, like he had rehearsed it. He hadn’t even done his nervous tick; touch his chin. Hide rubs his forehead and decides to let it slide, for now.

 

“Alright, if you say so.” Hide shrugs. He slides a menu across the table to his friend and gets one for himself, even though they don’t really need it, they’ve both been getting the exact same thing for however many years they’ve been going to this place.

 

Kaneki just hums, and their conversation dies out a bit after that. Good, because Hide has some critical thinking to do. That _was_ a sick black eye, after all. Kaneki couldn’t have given himself one that bad even if he tried. He thought it was unlikely anyone at school did anything, unless he got jumped or something. Suddenly, his thoughts shifted to his aunt. That interested him. He knew Kaneki’s aunt could be a bitch at times, but as far as he knew, she didn’t hurt Kaneki physically. Once, she threw out his books, and he helped Kaneki get them back anyway. Whenever he asked Kaneki how she was, he always said she just yelled a lot, so Hide left it at that. He’s known Kaneki long enough to know that he’ll push himself out of a conversation if it’s brought to a point that he doesn’t want to get to.

 

They order, and eat in peace. Kaneki complains about people in his Lit class and Hide complains about a research paper due in two days that he hasn’t started on even though he had a month to do it. Hide takes the bill, ignoring Kaneki’s protests, and offers to walk home with him. On their walk, Hide brings up the black eye again.

 

“So, that shiner,” Hide faces Kaneki and points to his own left eye. "What’d you do to yourself to make it that bad?”

 

Kaneki is visibly uncomfortable again, but Hide doesn’t really care. He thinks coaxing it out of him will be for the best. Anyway, did the brunette really think he could keep shit like that from Hide and not expect him to figure it out himself?

 

“Um,” Kaneki pauses, eyes flickering everywhere. His hand is already on his chin. _Gotcha_. “I – Okay, I was –“

 

“Save it.” Hide interrupts him and stops walking, brushing off the look Kaneki had given him by doing so, “I know you’re just going to lie to me.”

 

Kaneki’s eyes slide away and down to the sidewalk.

 

“I don’t like doing this. But I think it would be worse if I didn’t. Your aunt did that, right?” Kaneki doesn’t look up, but goes rigid at the mention of his aunt. Hide thinks that's pretty much an answer. He carefully rests a hand on the brunette’s shoulder.

 

“You can stay at my place, you know. My mom doesn’t care. If I let you go home and she hits you again, I don’t know if I could forgive myself.” Hide stares at Kaneki’s hair until he’s sure he’s going to start burning holes through his head. Kaneki slowly looks up and Hide pretends he doesn’t see the red watery rim of his right eye, because he’s already confronted Kaneki about enough for now.

 

“Yeah, okay. If your mom doesn’t care.” Kaneki finally murmurs, and Hide throws an arm over his shoulders and turns them around, towards the way to his own house.

 

“She won’t. I think she likes you more than me.” The blonde admits casually, squeezes his shoulder when he sees fresh pink on his cheeks.

 

 

 

As expected, Hide’s mom is glad to see Kaneki. She hugs him and comments on the eye-patch, asking him if it’s a new trend she’s behind on. She offers him dinner as well as a snack and a drink, which Kaneki all politely declines, before Hide can drag him to his room.

 

Once his door is closed the eye-patch is off, and Hide is inspecting Kaneki’s eye closely, all up in his face.

 

“What do you even do for this? Ice? Does it hurt?” Hide smoothens out Kaneki’s eyebrow while he’s touching around his eye and all, fixing the hairs that fell out of place during the day slightly, because that’s what friends do.

 

“It hurts when you touch it,” Kaneki glares at him, but Hide doesn’t back off. “I put an ice bag on it this morning because it looked really gross… It helped the swelling a little.”

 

Hide nods. “I’ll get one.”

 

He’s back not even two minutes later, expertly sneaking past his mother’s room and wrapping a frozen bag of peas with a towel – why did his mom even have a bag of peas? They both hated them. He silently enters his room again and hands the bag to Kaneki, who rests it on his face.

 

“Do you need to tell your aunt you’re here?” Hide asks, suddenly horrified from the thought of how she’d react to Kaneki just not coming home at all.

 

“I texted her.” Kaneki shrugs. “I don’t really think she notices if I’m there or not.”

 

Then, right at that moment, Hide felt something really ugly in his stomach. Something like anger but mixed with something else. Protectiveness. He was taught not to hit girls, but oh man, did he want to beat the crap out of this lady.

 

“Why don’t you hit back?” Hide asked, completely curious. He knew Kaneki wasn’t that strong, and if that lady was strong enough to give Kaneki a black eye, he figured it’d be fair game.

 

Kaneki bit his lip. “I know my mom wouldn’t want me to.”

 

The ugly feeling deep in Hide’s gut was replaced with something that was just something like sinking. He knew Kaneki’s mother gave his aunt money, but knew nothing else besides that. Why wouldn’t someone’s mother not want their child to defend themselves from someone who’s hurting them?

 

“It’s not that big of a deal, really. She always gives me bruises, but I think I just bruise easily.”

 

Hide flinches like he was just burned. “What? Where?” He blurts, because what the fuck.

 

“She usually just grabs me and squeezes until it leaves a mark. Screams at me for things she pissed herself off about. It's not that bad.” Kaneki explains casually, setting down the bag of peas and rolling up his sleeve to reveal a litter of bruises. Some faded to a weird green-yellow, and others a bluish purple. Hide just blanks out. Because what.

 

“Kaneki… What the.” He grabs his arm running his fingers gently over the bruises. “We need to report her.”

 

Kaneki yanks his arm out of his grasp, “No!” he shakes his head over and over, then repeats himself. “No. We can’t because… I won’t have anywhere else to go.”

 

“You can stay here!” Hide offers immediately, Kaneki’s still shaking his head.

 

“It’s okay. I can deal with it.” Kaneki forces a smile, and Hide feels angry tears burning at his eyes.

 

“I don’t want you to deal with it.” He wipes at his own face quickly. “You’d be okay here.”

 

“And you aren’t even crying. Has it been going on for so long that you don’t care anymore?” Hide regrets the words right after they leave his mouth, but Kaneki's still smiling. The blonde thinks he knows he didn't mean it like that. Still, kind of as an apology, Hide moves his hands to the sides Kaneki’s face, stroking the soft skin there. He checks on his eye. It still looks the same, just red from the frozen peas. Hide runs his finger over the purple bruise, testing, and watches Kaneki’s eyes flutter.

 

Hide doesn’t even know he’s kissing him until Kaneki makes a sound against his mouth and _woah, what._ Hide flings himself back immediately because friends just didn’t kiss each other. That was gay, where did that even _come from_?

 

“Oh shit,” Hide breathes, Kaneki’s expression is priceless, Hide can almost see the millions of thoughts running through the others head right now, and Hide knows he must not look much better. “Shit – I… I don’t even know.”

 

And honestly, that was pretty lousy. Kaneki had no damn idea how to kiss and neither did Hide, but, it shouldn’t have been _that_ bad.

 

“Try again.” Kaneki says. He’s grabbing for his hand.

 

“What?”

 

“ _Again_.”

 

Hide’s mouth is on his again, and the kiss lasts much longer this time. They clank their teeth together only once, but neither of them let it get to them, only pulling away when they’re both breathless. They actually move their lips this time, and Hide opens his eyes to see what Kaneki looks like. He’s flushed prettily almost down his neck, Hide doesn’t know if it’s from embarrassment or something else, but it’s cute.

 

“We suck.” Hide gets out between kisses, trying not to laugh because that would be so weird and gross.

 

“We can stop.” Kaneki kind of looks like a kicked puppy. Hide feels bad then, and experimentally nips at the brunettes bottom lip.

 

“No.” Hide says, but after two, three kisses, he eventually does pull away.

 

Instead, Hide brings Kaneki’s arm up and kisses the bruises there, before moving to kiss his left temple, right beside where the bruise fades on his eye.

 

When he looks at Kaneki again his eyes are so glassy Hide wonders if he can even see. “What’s on your mind?”

 

Kaneki gives a shaky laugh. “It’s dumb,” he wipes his right eye, but leaves his left alone. “It’s just – it’s the first time someone’s shown that they actually care, I think.”

 

Hide delicately swipes his thumb under his left eye for him; touch feather light. He lets his hand remain cupping the side of his face. “I’m serious about what I said earlier. Live with me.” He whispers, “We’re almost eighteen, we can get our own place soon.”

 

“I’ll think about it.” Kaneki leans into his hand, and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is appreciated!


End file.
